​​As she listened, a song flowed through the vents above her bed, whispering memories. She, then, began her usual talk. The day had just started, and the soft warm rays of sunlight continued their daily routine, leaking through the small orifices of her window. It was the goal of the rays to touch her skin, but she knew how to avoid them.

What if I never met you? She thought. What if, that night, I walked through another street, in another neighbourhood, into another bar? If you had just continued to be another faceless soul in a sea of humans, would I be happier now? Would I have noticed the dodged bullet?

She continued to shift, moving from the bed to the floor and all around the room. She danced her ritual, avoiding the sun, hating its warmth. It feels like you, she told him during their daily ‘conversation’. It hurts my skin. As usual there was no answer.

After several hours, the sun began to yield, and she, having found a dark place to sit, continued her discussion. Did you have a purpose? Was I supposed to experience something other than the pain, the hurt, the sorrow? Other than the confusion, the desperation and the poison of your love? What if I erase you? Would a catastrophic event occur if the universe took pity? If it granted me that wish, allowing me to wash all traces of your memory away, would that be a mistake? Would I forgo some necessary pain or experience?

The sun was gone now; replaced by a thick layer of darkness. Yet some traces of clouds carrying the tone of diluted blood could still be seen in the sky. Small shining dots insisted on showing up everywhere she looked, intending to hurt her. They feel like you too. The brighter the dots, the sharper the pain. She could feel them laughing at her, following her around, always catching her just as she settled on a space to look at. Cruel dots, more inhuman even than the skinny rays of sunshine; for the rays had begun to show her compassion and had decided to shine, some days, a little less.

Avoiding the pain, she learned to appreciate night sessions with the expert; his room was filled with fake lights, dancing inside transparent glasses, wishing they could be the sun. But those impostors didn’t hurt and she enjoyed that place because the shining dots couldn’t reach her and she could move around and talk. Always talk.

#########

I love the lights, they are harmless. The expert, can you see him? He sits there every night and just stares. He talked back once, a long time ago but now he just stares. So I ask- and you’re going love this - I ask, "And what is to become of my heart? It will not grow." But he only follows me with his eyes.

"My heart will shrink faster and faster” I continue “Until it is just a speck of dust in my chest."How about that, huh? But no reaction. No replies out of the expert! I don’t know how much of this I can take, maybe if I look at him with stern eyes, he will answer.

“So what do you think, Sir? And while we’re at it, are dust particles capable of loving? Tell me, is that even possible? You should know because you have done this before. You have sent others to similar rooms; rooms where bleeding hearts dangle from the ceilings and sing sad love songs, taking in the air and blowing it through the tiny holes of their exposed arteries. Tell me, did others end up with dust inside their heart cavity? Or will I be the only one?”

The expert many times wondered, observing her, frozen in his comfortable brown chair. His glasses resting on his educated but dehumanized nose. What’s on her mind? He thought often, knowing the daily routine. The repeated steps of every session, tattooed on the inside of his eyes. The tattoos, courtesy of the man inside; carved in desperation one night. He wanted to punish the expert and he knew he deserved it. She won’t stop, he thought that night, lying awake while the sounds of those shining dots refused to leave him in peace. How many evenings have passed? Every day is the same, but there must be something in her pacing, in her expression.

Just give up, said the man inside. You can’t find anything, can you? Such a sad man with a superior education and for what? You are not worthy of calling yourself an expert or even judging her. You are just worthless.

Both men argued all night; the dots persisting with their evil chatter and he knew he had to be punished. It’s the only way, the man inside said to him, taking over his thoughts. That way, you will see every step, every movement and then maybe you will be able to reach her. The expert agreed. Slowly moving inside, the other man carved her image on each of his eyelids, patiently removing the red liquid as it flowed swiftly from every cut.

I see it, see her now, he thought that night. There she is pacing, sitting on the couch and then moving onto the floor like she always does. She never talks, just looks at me, her face changing from sad, to harsh, to sad again. I continue to stare, sitting on my chair, the perfect Italian leather wrapping itself around my back, hoping to hear her, but she never speaks, she just keeps going, her act is unbreakable. What does it mean? The carvings must help, I need them to help!

That night he slept better, closing his eyes to see her in her carved, crusty form. He preferred her that way, with less chaos, and he thought then he could understand her. He would sit in his chair with his eyes closed, ignoring the one moving around in his office. But she, the other one, continued to torment the man inside. He would follow her movements with desperation and he began to push the expert, again from the inside, to poke harder, to explore and to uncover her motives.

Read her movements, he demanded, figure it out. What does she want?!!! He was screaming now, so loud the skin of the expert trembled and started to peel, revealing his grotesque copper muscles. Scream all you want, I won’t search anymore. I can see her when I blink, she is with me, she is calmer now and I no longer need the other one.

The man inside continued to shout, smashing his muscular fists through every wall of the expert’s body. The blows were so powerful, the body began to tear at the seams. Eventually the expert disintegrated inside, leaving a hollow carcass sitting on the chair, staring, vacant while particles of dust escaped through his dehumanized nose, fogging up the doctor’s glasses.

She didn’t notice. Look at him just sitting there. I come and I talk to him, I give him my fancy description of heartbreak, I speak of dust particles, giving him all my metaphors, being imaginative and nothing! I tell him all that, I talk and I talk, but he doesn’t answer. Are you responsible for his behaviour? Why? Wasn’t breaking my spirit enough? You that ripped out my heart, painted it black and placed it again beneath my ribs to poison my insides. Now you plug his ears so he can’t hear me, you cover his eyes so he can’t see me and you seal his mouth so he can’t answer me? It’s all you and your incessant need to be here with me, to never allow me to erase the memory of your wicked love.

By now her pacing had become a heavy jogging around the room. It increased with such force, she began to climb the walls and a few laps became paralyzed in the middle of the ceiling while the world outside copied her, turning itself upside down. A voice, coming from the corner, touched her hair and she quickly spun left and right trying to find it.

"You never spoke," a voice said. It came from a pile of tiny muscles, skin, and a pair of bifocals lying on the floor, by the expert’s chair in the darkest spot in the room. She understood without looking and began to see the flashes of her past screams; glimpses of her now forgotten cries. In her memory, she observed the desperation of the other patients, their ears getting stabbed by her incessant blue notes uttered day and night. Memories of strange doctors reaching one ultimate solution to her, to the “problem.” And the final image her waking up in a strange bed unable to make a sound, the source of her screams removed. She realized that now, only subtle moans were left. The sounds were emitted by her eyes, because, after so much grief without escape, they had learned to speak with a cordless and almost inaudible voice. They did that for her, learning to scream for her, out of love.

She remained now standing on the roof, deaf to the screams of the outside world that didn’t understand its new upside down nature. A strange kind of clarity, amidst her madness, overcame her and she knew that only inner talks where possible for her now and forever.

Well, I guess it wasn’t you; I’m sorry, please don’t leave me. She said, sounding barely apologetic, her pride still beating strong. With a new sorrow moving into her already blackened heart, she watched as the orderlies came into the room. They were there to clean, “the mess that crazy bitch just left in the corner,” and allowed them to bring her down from the roof and take her away.

They locked her back in her room, the floor now filled with the shining dots that had fallen when the world flipped over. She continued her inner dialogue, now with an extra resident to hurt for, her eyes becoming ever more talkative and poetic with time.